have

中文词源

英语词源

have: [OE] Have and its Germanic cousins, German haben, Dutch hebben, Swedish ha, and Danish have, come from a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *khabēn. This was probably a product of Indo-European *kap-, which was also the source of English heave and Latin capere ‘seize’ (whence English capable, capture, etc). In all the Germanic languages it shares the function of denoting ‘possession’ with that of forming the perfect tense. (It appears, incidentally, to have no etymological connection with the superficially similar Latin habēre ‘have’.)=> capable, captive, capture

Old English habban "to own, possess; be subject to, experience," from Proto-Germanic *haben- (cognates: Old Norse hafa, Old Saxon hebbjan, Old Frisian habba, German haben, Gothic haban "to have"), from PIE *kap- "to grasp" (see capable). Not related to Latin habere, despite similarity in form and sense; the Latin cognate is capere "seize.

Sense of "possess, have at one's disposal" (I have a book) is a shift from older languages, where the thing possessed was made the subject and the possessor took the dative case (as in Latin est mihi liber "I have a book," literally "there is to me a book"). Used as an auxiliary in Old English, too (especially to form present perfect tense); the word has taken on more functions over time; Modern English he had better would have been Old English him (dative) wære betere.

To have to for "must" (1570s) is from sense of "possess as a duty or thing to be done" (Old English). Phrase have a nice day as a salutation after a commercial transaction attested by 1970, American English. Phrase have (noun), will (verb) is from 1954, originally from comedian Bob Hope, in the form Have tux, will travel; Hope described this as typical of vaudevillians' ads in "Variety," indicating a willingness and readiness to perform anywhere.